Eragon Eighteen
C'hapters' A costly mistake, A vision of perfection. When a chapter is called a "vision of perfection" my warning bells just go off and start screaming four alarm Sue. Anyone else's do that? Summary Brom and Eragon leave Jeod and Terim. They do not restock up on supplies. Eragon asks Brom about werecats we learn that they are Very Mysterious just like dragons and they liked getting involved in things. There's a lovely bit where Eragon questions Brom (finally) and says "you also know so much about dragonlore" but doesn't ask how he knows this. Instead he wants to know about Brom's past. Apparently, though Eragon is the center of a great conflict between the Empire and the Varden. (Who would have guessed?) They're fighting to control the next generation of dragon riders. Apparently there were only three dragon eggs left in all of Alagaesia. (Which now that I think about it sounds like something like a disease.) What I want to know is what happened to all the wild dragons. See, Paolini said that the dragons only gave up a few of their eggs to the Riders. So there should be wild, unattached dragons around. Where are they? And how can you have a next generation that's sustainable with only three eggs? We don't know how many eggs a dragon lays. They could only lay one at a time. They'll only hatch for the right person and it may take years for the egg to find the right person. It could take hundreds of years for the Riders to get to even a reasonable amount of numbers. Say... thirty. That's a long time. And what if all three dragons were the same sex? Then what are they going to do? They can't reproduce asexually, so there goes that. But apparently that's not important. The fact that Brom worked for the Varden is. Whoever didn't see that coming needs to pay more attention. Brom even killed Morzan trying to recover one of the eggs (Saphira's egg). Another clue that Brom is/was a dragon rider is that the Varden asked him to train the next dragon rider that hatched out of the egg. Why would they do that if he didn't know anything about dragon riding from personal experience. It'd be stupid (of course everyone else in this book seems to have the intelligence of the average dirty sock... so who knows?) Brom then tells Eragon that he has this choice of on if he should join the Varden or not. He initially says no. However, let us think about this for a moment. Eragon is our Hero. Galby is Evil. The Varden are the people fighting against Galby. Where do you think he's going to end up? There's no suspense. There's no choice. Eragon may say that he doesn't want to end up with the Varden because he doesn't want to get involved with their politics, but we already know that he hates Galby so the obvious place is to join up with the Varden. There's no suspense there. In fact, as soon as I heard about the Varden, I knew he was going to join up with them. Oh and Brom knew Eragon's mother. He describes her as, "Fully dignity and pride, like Garrow. Ultimately it was her downfall, but it was one of her greatest gifts nevertheless... she always helped the poor and less fortunate, no matter what her situation." Eragon's mum is a Sue! It's inherited. Then for no particular reason Eragon breaks his wrist. After seeing an Urgal foot print. They flee Eragon on Saphira and Brom on the horses. When the Urgals get near Brom, Eragon lands to distract them. The Urgals tell Eragon that their master wants to talk to him. His master rules the sky and holds dominance over the earth. Gee, I wonder who that could be. Eragon thinks that it's a third party. Would they be the shade of gray party previously not seen in this book? Eragon, in a fit of brilliance, instead of killing the urgals, throws them. Which saps him of his strength and leaves him to nearly die. Why the urgals are still around. And are not thrown that far. Fortunately (I suppose) Saphira has a bit of brains and flies off. Eragon is saved and finds himself alone. He's just woken up after expending all his energy in a large magical feat, decides to try some new magic. Why hasn't he died from his own stupidity yet? I don't know. But we get a look at how useless Paolini's scrying is. First he scries on Saphira and Brom. He sees the two of them flying in a pure white surrounding. Eragon doesn't even get to see the sky if he's never seen that bit of sky before. Then he sees Roran sitting on nothing, no where. He doesn't know if his cousin has been captured or anything. We learn nothing except that Roran is still alive. Then for some reason he decides to scry on the girl he saw in his dream. For some reason this works! He actually gets useful information, that the girl is in a cell some where. And then she looks at him. OHMIGAWD HOW MEANINGFUL! HOW IMPORTANT! HOW NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN ACCORDING TO PAOLINI FIVE CHAPTERS AGO! Yes folks, Paolini just broke one of the major rules of fantasy writing. Do not break the rules of magic once you have set them down. Especially not for your hero. But Eragon is just that special. Brom then berates Eragon for doing what he did and not killing the urgals. Eragon doesn't want to kill them. I suppose this is to show that he's compassionate to even Evil Things. Or so that Brom could yell at him and tell him that he was an idiot thus giving him a flaw. Brom is very disturbed that the Urgals have a leader. He too thinks it's a third party. Just when I had hope for him. Ah well. Category:Eragon Category:Inheritance Cycle